Mosman: A History
About this ebook
Acclaimed historian Gavin Souter traces a two-centuries’ course of change from Aboriginal habitation to convict farming, wharfage, residential subdivision, quarrying, and eventually what Henry Lawson called Mosman’s ‘red-tiled roofs of comfort’. The story begins with the Borogegal, a clan first encountered by Europeans in 1788, and ends with the centenary of Mosman Council, controversies about environmental planning, and the rampage of a serial murderer.
Mosman deals with all the essentials of its subject (politics, schools, churches, sports, crime rates, garbage and sewerage), but more importantly it offers an illuminating case study from the wide-spread but sparsely documented social class of which Mosman is a microcosm. This life story of a remarkable suburb is notable for its extensive research, vivid detail and engrossing narrative – a combination not always encountered in the genre of local history.
First published in 1994, Xoum is proud to release for the first time digitally the definitive history of the Sydney suburb of Mosman.
About the author
Gavin Souter AO was born in 1929 in Sydney. He was educated at Kempsey High School and Scots College in Warwick, Queensland, before graduating BA from the University of Sydney. He joined The Sydney Morning Herald as a journalist in 1947 and worked there for 40 years, serving as a correspondent in New York and London and later as an Assistant Editor of the newspaper.
He is the author of eleven works of non-fiction, including A Peculiar People, The Australians in Paraguay (1968), which won the Foundation of Australian Literary Studies award; Lion & Kangaroo, The Initiation of Australia 1901–1919 (1976); Company of Heralds (1981), which also won the Foundation for Australian Literary Studies award; and Heralds and Angels, the House of Fairfax 1841–1990 (1992), which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award.
Gavin was Vice President of the Australian Society of Authors between 1975 and 1978 and Deputy Chairman of the Commonwealth Films Board of Review between 1981 and 1984.
In 1960, he won the W.G. Walkley Award for Australian Journalism; in 1988 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), and raised to Officer level (AO) in 1995; and in 2001 he was awarded the Centenary Medal.
Gavin lives with his wife in Sydney.
